Life After Death
by KH-Scribes
Summary: This follows from Emily's "death" and subsequent coming back. Established Jemily. Rossi is like Emily's dad. 35 weeks of JJ and Emily's journey. Oneshot.


**Life After Death**

It had been 3 weeks since JJ left Emily in Paris, the words I love you and the remembrance of her beautiful body swirled in her mind. She played the depressed widow.

After all her and Will had separated a year ago after she came back from Afghanistan, he couldn't handle the PTSD and she couldn't handle his desperation to talk about her loss.

When Emily held her on nights, she had drunk too much to forget about her daughter, and she held Emily's hand as she cried over her own trauma she yet knew, they found a mutual understanding, that turned into love.

And now. That love was crushed. Under the weight of false deaths and tears that were more than real. Holding her best friend on her lap as he shook asking why someone would take his sister, his best friends' wife, the glue that held this team together.

She ran fingers through his hair, and her mind falls back to kissing Emily's forehead as she flew back stateside leaving her lover in a country for lovers to be together.

It had been 5 weeks since Paris.

Rossi stumbled over words he never had trouble with, and he looks around the plane like he is looking for the woman he claimed has his daughter.

Hotch taps the man on the shoulder with a shake of his head and both the team leader and the blonde agent share a look - one would suspect to be sorrow or forlorn. And in one way it is this. For they have lost their beloved and do not know if she will ever return.

It is 7 weeks from Paris, Henry tugs on his mother's bed sheets, he is still tired, and JJ knows this because he is tugging the covers on /her/ side of the bed. She picks him up and whispers to him

"Mama Em will always love you"

her mantra to him when he asks where she has gone, when they visit the grave after the funeral, she uses present tense. It is the one hope she has she will see her wife again.

It is 10 weeks from Paris, a popup on her scrabble game comes up, she expects this to be Reid or Rossi challenging her to a game instead "CappuccinoCraver70" is requesting a game, she accepts confused at first.

The first word is "forgive", she plays "grater", the second word is "love", she plays "radical", her opponent plays the word "read" and she finally puts it together, she plays the word "always".

It is 15 weeks later, she smiles at her tablet, Derek walks over and smiles at her, it does not reach his eyes,

"Pennsylvania Petite, it's good to see you smile again",

Garcia is close behind him, hand in hand, she nods her eyes sheen with tears that she will not stop shedding for her beloved friend,

"Jayje, it is really good to see that smile."

JJ nods and replies a short thanks because it is 8:30pm in Quantico and Emily has stayed up till midnight so she can play scrabble with her wife.

17 weeks later and Henry has gone a month without outright asking for Mama Em. JJ hides in her bathroom to cry the night he stops asking her to read 2 bedtime stories because one would be read by her and the other by Emily.

20 weeks. 4 months. She wants to try and find her wife in Paris, or Germany, or Italy. She doesn't even know if her wife is in Europe anymore. The last place name she played on Scrabble (even if rules do not allow it) was Berlin. That was 1 month and 2 days ago.

21 weeks. Her phone dings "CappuccinoCraver70" she covers her mouth as she is in the bullpen, pretends she is coughing, hopes the tears in her eyes are not noticeable. "Sorry" is the word, "forgive" is replied, "love" is sent, "forever" replied.

24 weeks. 5 months without her wife. 5 months raising Henry without his other mother.

Will comes over more weekends than not now, instead of taking Henry with him, he stays in town. The three go to the zoo together. She takes a picture of the porcupine and shakes her head wondering how_ that_ could be Emily's favourite animal.

She is glad now that they managed to stay friends. That he came to understand her relationship to Emily. That he allows her to also be a parent to their son.

27 weeks. She is screaming into her pillow after she bathed Henry and put him to bed.

She cut a spare piece of his birthday cake and puts it in the fridge.

"Just in case" everyone looks on with pity in their eyes, and she does not know if it is worse to know your wife is alive and you only can communicate word by word based on letters you will get by coincidence (she has spent more money on a fake game to buy letters than she is sure she did on her car payment last month) pretend to everyone she is dead, console the friends of your lover.

Or if it would be better for her wife to truly be dead. And then. She screams. And covers her mouth. Because how dare that thought even enter her brain. And she punches the pillow, throws the wedding picture and Henry stands outside the door listening.

He grabs the phone and holds number 1 - it's what Mommy always said to do if Mommy needed help, and suddenly Mama Em's voice comes through the speaker and he cries too as

"Hi, you've reached Special Agent Emily Prentiss I am not available right now, leave a message pertaining to what you wish to discuss and I will get back to you ASAP."

He wants to hang up before he hears Mommy's laugh through the phone and Mama Em saying a "shut up" under her breath, but he doesn't, and the beep comes and he breathes in and out and says the only thing he thinks of

"Mama Em, come home. I miss you and Mommy misses you more. Mommy hurts Mama. Home. Please."

JJ opens the door to her son and pries the phone from him.

"Henry, what are you doing?!"

She does not mean to snap, but by God she hopes Emily did not keep that phone with her... She holds Henry so tight and rocks him, they cry together, and she needs Emily to come home.

29 weeks. They think Ian Doyle is back, they cannot prove it. JJ and Hotch discuss things. Rossi realises he was right after week 11 and that Emily is alive. In hiding.

Reid stays confused and even asks Garcia if Hotch and JJ are getting together since they have spent so much time together the past few days. Garcia and Derek both guffaw and then realise the kid may be right...

Week 30. 7 months. JJ and Hotch announce the situation...

Garcia cries. Reid leaves the room. Derek; well Hotch puts himself between the man and JJ because he is almost certain Derek will punch someone.

Rossi nods, suspicions confirmed, but tears of joy escape, because at least he knows for sure.

And suddenly they all see JJ fall to her knees tears stream down her face and Emily does not take a beat to do forced introductions or apologies, she merely wraps her wife in her arms and rocks her back and forth, kissing tears away and then looks up.

Derek punches the door on his way out. Garcia pulls out a seat and simply stares at the scene in front of her. Hotch runs after Derek but before he can Rossi grabs his hand and whispers,

"It's good to have her back, I was hoping it'd be under a year"

and Hotch shakes his head thinking that man is not a profiler for no reason.

Emily watches the fallout of her return. She watches the heartache her "death" caused, and the anger that her lies did. JJ watches her wife with a forlorn expression, she does not know how to help this situation.

Reid is yelling at her, Hotch is taking most of the heat from Derek, Garcia is seemingly crying each time she realises Emily is actually real, Rossi invites Emily over for scotch and conversation and she gladly accepts, asking JJ if she wants to come the blonde shakes her head and says she will stay home with Henry.

Emily knows this is false, Henry is with Will from Thursday to Sunday this week and Rossi has invited her for Saturday. She lets this go - this time.

At Rossi's home she sips the scotch, her body shakes and he wonders if she is eating properly, if she is sleeping properly, what must it be like to playing dead for 7 months to being thrust back to the family she lost.

He has seen victims of kidnapping react this way. Close themselves off in case they get taken again. Begin to question who they are. What are their motives.

He puts down his glass and she must be somewhere else because she jumps and the glass sloshes, small golden liquor dripping out.

He notices the way her shoulders hunch over herself and she places her legs in front of her, he does not even care that her shoes are on his leather sofa.

He walks over and plucks the glass from her hand, and she lets him with no argument, he wonders how often she argues her point now, has she become subservient to merely please those around her.

He knows she does anything for Derek or Reid, she has stretched herself thin to visit Garcia at the vibrant woman's beck and call, he does not know how many stories she reads Henry a night, or checks on him and her wife to make sure they are really there, he does not know if she leaves the office unless Hotch demands her or JJ asks because she needs to please the team leader with her paperwork.

And he knew she would accept dinner with him tonight, she has not missed a chess game or a scotch night since she has been back.

He looks at her really looks at her and sighs,

"Kiddo, you have to let yourself grieve."

And she shakes her head, and with it her whole body shakes,

"I dont know what you mean there Rossi"

He moves towards her, sits beside her on the couch, points towards the glass and asks her about it.

"You let me take it. No questions. No funny quips. You let me take it."

She stares at him, her eyes a glare but he looks deeper, he sees the pleading there. The 'do not go there', and he apologises because he knows he will prod.

"What else do you let people take from you Emily? Your job? Your friends? Your wife? Your son? Your life?!"

He knows he may have gone to far he sees her body shake, watches her wrap herself in a cocoon of her own boney limbs.

"What else kiddo? Your body? Your soul? Your identity?"

She says something and he does not hear it until he speaks up again,

"Who are you Emily Prentiss? Lauren Reynolds? Eli-"

"Stop it Dave. Stop."

She is not yelling at him, but her hand has gripped his wrist and she stares at him until he believes he may die just do get away from the terror, the sadness, the anger that awakens in this woman.

He taps her hand and she releases the hold but not the stare.

"I'm calling JJ to come get you"

And this time she does yell, but it is a pleading cry, not an angry call

"Dont! Do not call her! Please. Please."

He does it anyway behind her back as she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, the alcohol and the anger and sadness has run through her and she thinks she may be sick.

When the doorbell rings and she sees her wife she collapses. JJ looks at Rossi confused, and angry

"what happened David?"

He does not answer just nods towards the woman who is sitting on the couch her body aching, her eyes wide, and her hands shaking, and JJ sits beside her wife.

It takes a few moments for her to hear the words and when she hears them her heart breaks

"Emily Prentiss is dead."

Over and over it reminds her of the mantra she would say about Lauren Reynolds. It reminds her that for 7 months her wife was dead. Gone from this world. And it reminds her to hold her wife tighter and correct her each time.

"Emily Elizabeth Prentiss-Jareau is alive."

She kisses the shaking knuckles,

"The mother of Henry Peter Lamontange Prentiss-Jareau is alive."

She kisses the sweating forehead.

"The wife of Jennifer Daisy Prentiss-Jareau is alive."

She kisses the trembling lips.

Rossi watches on, and leaves the room, glass of scotch in hand. It is an hour later when Emily knocks on his office door and he opens it. She takes the scotch from his hand and takes a sip handing it back to him and he notices the faintest of her old smirk back,

"Thank you, Dave. For giving me that push. Maybe. Um. Maybe it was the brain shock I needed to get me back to life."

He nods and she looks at him, holds out her hand, and he uses it to pull her into a hug,

"The best gift David Rossi could ever have is alive."

He says to her, his voice trembles and he coughs hoping to cover it up.

As she leaves she waves to him and holds hands with JJ.

It had been 8 months. 35 weeks. And she was finally alive in the arms of her wife. Tucking her son into bed. Playing Chess with Reid. Supplying Witter banter with Derek. Causing Hotch extra paper work. Drinking with Garcia. Reading with Rossi.

35 weeks. She was resurrected.


End file.
